Well the animal rescue groups as well as the public are mostly duped by their understanding of the Humane Society of the United States. Notice the deliberate and striking similarity to the name of your local 'humane society' shelters, which have long been serving the interests of animal welfare across the country for over one hundred years.
In spite of the name, the Humane Society of the United States has absolutely no affiliation or association whatsoever with your local humane society shelters. HSUS has a huge budget, but in their 30+ year history never meaningfully contributed any monies to local animal and humane society shelters nor operated any shelters of their own, until very recently when they opened the first HSUS animal shelter for no other reason than to blunt criticism that they do not actually help animals. The vast majority of the HSUS budget is spent paying the lucrative salaries of HSUS officials and political lobbying.
HSUS is the group who mails all these 'heart-string' fund raising packets filled with 'greeting cards' picturing cute little puppies and kittens. The fund raising letters lament the number of dogs and cats euthanized every year because of overpopulation, then cite how many dogs or cats could be spayed or neutered with 'your generous contribution'. People with a soft spot for animals of course give generously, myself included before I learned what the HSUS was, but investigations of HSUS expenditures show that a paultry few pennies on the dollar of those contributions go to spaying or neutering a single animal, until very recently and only to blunt criticism of the organization.
My mother volunteers for a few rescue groups and I'm constantly having to educate these people about the HSUS and its ties to extremists.
Please, if you want to donate money to the cause of animal welfare, donate DIRECTLY to your local animal shelters, humane societies, and non-profit animal rescue groups, who are in the trenches actually saving and benefitting animals, often with scant resources and shoe-string budgets, relying heavily on volunteers, while large national organizations such as the HSUS have $50+ million annual budgets, most of which goes to lining their own pockets and political lobbying, not to animal welfare.
